A Newbery Award winner delivers a witty tale of the Wild West filled with comical cliffhangers and featuring a cast of plucky orphans and dastardly villains.

From the Publisher:Unexpectedly orphaned in the 19th century, Emily is torn between neighbors who would send her to live with her honorable aunt and a child-catcher who would deliver her to a wicked uncle, a situation that causes a friendship to be forged with a fellow orphan who assists Emily as she seeks to discover her uncle's true motives. By the Newbery Award-winning author of Shiloh. Simultaneous.

Annotation:This humorous Wild West story follows the frantic fortunes of 8-year-old Emily Wiggens after she's orphaned. She is supposed to go to her lovely Aunt Hilda, but evil interlopers Miss Catchum and Uncle Victor are determined to keep Emily, and her vast inheritance, to themselves. On a stagecoach ride west, Emily and another orphan, Jackson, plot escape. Hilarity and witty writing follow. With illustrations.

Author Bio

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's first work was published in a church magazine when she was 16 years old. She paid her way through college, where she majored in clinical psychology, by writing and selling stories. Naylor found that she enjoyed writing so much that she abandoned her plans to attend graduate school. WHAT THE GULLS WERE SINGING, her first published work for children, appeared in 1967. Her 1991 work, SHILOH, was awarded the Newbery Medal.